A good start to the painting

I thought it might be fun to take photos of a work in progress. I'm determined to get Eliza's Copper Penny up on Amazon within the week so I started working on the cover painting yesterday. I started by asking my husband to pose so I could have a picture of the body. I kinda messed up the proportions on Julia's cover so I knew I needed to start with a much better photo. Julia's Golden Eagle was made up from a whole bunch of images. Oh well, it still works but I knew I could do better. Anyway, here's the start in progression.

After sketching it first in chalk, I start by doing the background. I eventually ended up with the hat too tall so I had to add more sky. Bummer but it's okay. Anyway, I worked on the face next. I sorta did this from my own imagination and my husbands photo and ended up with a hero that looked a little like my son and a little like my very first boyfriend. 

I didn't want the shirt to be all black so I added some reds in it. The shirt took the longest to paint due to the folds. And the black I used was old so a bit sticky. It spread nicely as long as I had white to go with it.

I love the immediacy of acrylic but I think I could make it look more photo realistic if I used oils. But I'm still happy with the result. For the various coins, I've been using photoshop. I didn't want to use the real thing as I though just a vague idea of the coin would be better. I'm hoping each book will also have a sense of the various seasons. This one is for spring, Julia's Golden Eagle is for Fall and Sarah's Brass Token is for Summer. When I get around to doing Kaitlin's Silver Lining, I'll try to capture winter. As that book isn't as tightly connected as these first three, I'm not in as big of a hurry to get it out. With my schedule, I'm hoping for March when I have spring break to work on it.

I'm working hard to revamp and tighten the original. I don't make big changes; I just want to take out some of the redundancy. If all goes as plans, my goal is to have it up tomorrow, but....

Father's day ART tribute to a great man

Gonna take a break from posting pics of my trip to Europe to pay tribute to my father. For those that have not visited my website, I have a concentration of art pieces dedicated to my dad. So -- thought I'd revisit those today.

My father was perhaps one of the kindest men around and yet, he was definitely what we term a "man's man." He loved to fish, hunt, fix cars, and do carpentry. Yep, he could do just about anything he set his mind to. His day job had him traveling from town to town. He was the local field representative for Social Security but he loved his job. It allowed him time to talk with the old farmers in the area and swap stories.

He was always there for me. I remember one scout outing, a Father/Daughter campout, where we were supposed to lay out an onion trail for our dad's to follow. My girlfriend and I set out to lay our trail but didn't stay on the path. Anyway, we got ourselves thoroughly lost. Finally, we just stopped and waited. Sure enough, our Dads proved what great sniffers they had cuz they found us. I was never so glad.

His later years, he suffered rheumatoid arthritis. The medication also caused complications. It was so hard to witness this strong man getting weaker each day. When he died, I cried but kept most of the sorrow within. He died May 5, 1999. That summer, I attended an AP art institute where we were instructed to create a body of work. We did 16 pieces of art in 4 days. Very intense. I chose my father and his illness for my subject matter.

The last piece, brought tears to everyone when I presented it for critique. That's when my grief began to heal. Basically, it's a poem where one part his is repsonse the other mine. The last week of his life he'd loss the use of his hands and feet. So I used shoes, feet and shoelaces as a metaphor for his desire to embrace life even when life didn't embrace him. Above is an image meant to show his sense of humor even when faced with such adversity. The shoes to the left are full of thumbtacks, a way of showing the pain he must have endured. But - he never complained. He always had a smile on his face. I clearly remember the last day I saw him. He couldn't speak and was trying to tell me something. I couldn't understand, but his eyes twinkled with mirth and he smiled. I miss you.